Coronavirus Update: Remote and electronic working

24th March 2020

Having had a chance to consider and digest the President’s Guidance, as well as the documents circulated by Mr Justice Mostyn and Mr Justice MacDonald, we wanted to let you know what we, at 4PB, are doing to assist with the smooth running of cases over the next few months: Click here.

Hearings, arbitrations and all other forms of ADR

 

For any form of ADR and on occasions when the Court is unable to set up the hearing itself, we are able to offer a digital experience, via Zoom, which will include:

The Court or arbitration room;

 

  • Separate conference rooms for the parties and their teams; and
  • A corridor for counsel’s discussions.

All participants will be sent the joining details no less than 24-hours in advance of the session. When in the session, a member of the 4PB clerking or admin team will create the three rooms and manage everyone’s access throughout the day.

There is no need for any software or apps to be downloaded in advance: it will all be generated automatically when participants click on the access links provided.

 

Conferences, consultations and advocates’ meetings

We are able to set up telephone and videoconferences via Lifesize and Zoom respectively, neither of which require any of the participants to download any software in advance, as above.

If you have opted for a video or telephone conference with counsel, then you will be sent joining details 24 hours before the conference is due to commence, which can then be forward to anyone who needs to join.

 

E-bundles

If you need to create a fully-indexed, hyperlinked and electronically paginated bundle (per Mr Justice Mostyn’s recent guidance), then we can ensure you have access to our BundleDocs account (demo here) to do so.

As the YouTube clip demonstrates, bundles can be created very easily and quickly from a variety of document types, including Microsoft Word files, emails and PDFs. Once all of the documents have been inserted, the bundle can be “generated” and in doing so, is electronically paginated and OCR’d. The generated bundle can be shared with the other parties and the Court by way of an emailed link, and can be updated and re-generated for future hearings.

If you would like to create a bundle for a hearing or arbitration that is being conducted by one or more members of 4PB, then please email bundles@4pb.com with the details and a link will be sent out to give you the necessary access.

 

Physical presence at chambers

Whilst we are planning on being very active online, our buildings in the Temple will be closed whilst this continues. You can still get in touch with us via clerks@4pb.com, or by calling on 020 7427 5200.